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Cyberethics
Cyberethics, a pillar of the 3 C's. by Sarah Donahey When I found out that I was doing this topic I was skeptical on what it was all about. What is Cyber Ethics and how can I use it in the classroom? With more research, I found the true definition of Cyber Ethics. According to Microsoft, “Ethics are principles or standards of human conduct. Cyber ethics is a code of behavior on the Internet .Based on common sense and good judgment, cyber ethics also includes obeying laws that apply to online behavior. When you practice cyber ethics, you are more likely to have a safer and enjoyable Internet experience.” Now that I have established the definition of cyber ethics, I’m going to review four key aspects that I thought were important to know. The four key aspects that I will discuss are cyber bullying, digital foot prints, intellectual property, and phishing schemes. Cyber bullying has grown over the past couple of years due to social media. Today, every child has smart phones with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Social media has blown up and now whatever children do is all over the web. Children are getting bullied because they didn’t wear the new fashion clothing, or they didn’t attend a social event. In stores, all you see is children on their phone snapping a picture of what they are eating or what someone is wearing. Face-to-face bullying still happens and teachers can sometimes get in the middle of it. But with cyber bullying, teachers are unaware if a child is getting bullied because the child isn’t reporting it. According to Dilmaç, B., Yurt, E., Aydın, M., & Kaşarcı, İ. (2016), “Cyber-bullying can be defined as; facilitation of ongoing and deliberate harassment and threatening of an individual or a group of people intentionally by sending rude texts or views, deliberate, repetitive and hostile acts with intention to give harm to an individual or a group of people, involving the use of information and communication technologies like e-mails, cellular phones, pagers, sms services, and web-sites(p.7)”. Due to the fact that social media is lurking on our back door, it’s no wonder why cyber bullying is on the rise. Patchin and Hinduja (2006), states “that individuals can hide behind some measure of anonymity when using their personal computer or cellular phone to bully another individual, which perhaps frees them from normative and social constraints on their behavior.” A student can sit behind a computer screen and say negative things to other students and they think that there are no repercussions for their actions. Additionally, according to Dilmaç, B., Yurt, E., Aydın, M., & Kaşarcı, İ. (2016), “Researchers reveal that cyber-bullying has serious impacts on school life (p.8)”. Students are scared to come to school and they don’t feel safe anymore. This is a negative impact because for some, school is the only place where students feel safe. Furthermore, Dilmaç, B., Yurt, E., Aydın, M., & Kaşarcı, İ. (2016) states, “In a research carried out by Dilmaç (2009) to find out the relationship between cyberbullying and personal characteristics, the ones who are not bully-victims have more persistent characteristics compared to self-victims and bully-victims. Persistency is the only variable that predicts cyberbullying. When the values of persistency rise, cyber victimization rate falls (p.15)”. In this study, the cyber bully is always persistent and when they keep up the bullying the number of victims fall. Dilmac (2016) states, “Yaman and Peker (2012) determined that cyberbullying behavior exhibited by students are categorized as cyber verbal language, cyber forgery, and hiding identity. According to the results of their study, Yaman and Peker (2012) indicated that the reasons for cyberbullying include gaining social popularity, struggling boredom, and making revenge (p.16)”. Students are being cyber bullies to gain popularity and be the cool kid on campus. I have a co-worker that was cyber bullied in 7th grade because she was dating the starting quarterback and everyone was jealous of her. According to Qing, L (2010), “Cyberbullying can be devastating for victims and their families. The psychological harm inflicted by cyberbullying, just like bullying, is reflected in low self-esteem, school failure, anger, anxiety, depression, school avoidance, school violence, and suicide. It is even possible that the damage from cyberbullying would be greater than bullying because there is no escape for the victims; harmful material could be easily preserved as well as quickly and widely spread (p.374)”. In this study, Qing demonstrates he discusses what the actual students did. The results were very interesting. Qing, L. (2010) stated, “When students witnessed cyberbullying, about one in seven chose to join in and one in eight actually cheered the cyberbully on. The vast majority, over 70%, reported that they watched but did not participate. Over 25% said they chose to leave the online environment. Almost 9% reported they objected to others but not directly to the cyberbully, whereas 23% answered they objected directly to the cyberbully. About 35% tried to help or befriend the victim, but less than 10% reported the incidents to someone who could help the victim (p.380)”. These statistics are very troublesome. Students are watched cyber bullying being demonstrated but they won’t do anything because they don’t want anything to happen to them. Additionally, according to Qing,L (2010), “What did the students consider the intention of cyberbullying to be? About one in five thought it was because cyberbullies considered such behavior “cool”; almost 45% of the students thought the cyberbullies either felt insecure or were angry or jealous. Over 63% believed that cyberbullies did it for fun. Almost 45% of students thought that the cyberbullies were mean, bored, or having family problems. Nearly 30% believed that cyberbullies used it as a defense mechanism(p.380)”. As teachers, we know why cyber bullying is happening and what we can do in our classroom to stop it. Teachers can help by demonstrating lessons to the students on what cyber bullying is and how it is portrayed to give the students a sense of what to look for. Teachers can also enforce a policy to not use social media and or cellphones in their classroom. Educators need to find a way to bond with the students again to make school a safe haven for these young minds. The next aspect that I will discuss is the digital foot print. What is a digital foot print? According to Kligiene,S.N.(2012), “A digital footprint is a combination of activities and behavior when the entity under consideration (a person or something else) is acting in the digital environment(p.69)”. A digital foot print is in essence everything that you might do on your electronic device. Additionally, Kligiene, S.N.(2012) states, “These may be log on or off records, address of visited web pages, open or developed files, e-mails or chat records. Digital footprints of this kind are accessible to data mining when the interested parts seek to learn more about some entity or individual. The footprints show the sites where we have been, how long and how often they were visited. That is as if the moments of memory(p.69)”. Digital foot prints are the memory of what you visited on the internet. For some there is nothing to hide, but for others this will show people what site that person might have been on. Students think there are no consequences because it’s just the internet. But in a matter of seconds, a picture of you eating a whole lemon pie could be on everyone news feed on Facebook. Teachers need to educate their students on what a digital foot print is and how there are consequences for everything that you do. Additionally, according to Kligiene,S.N.(2012), “We can diminish threats and dangers as yet only by enlightening users, educating specialists in the spirit of professional ethics already at the university lecture-rooms, by stressing the importance of professional ethics in the stages of social media creation and keeping to them. Thus, social media pitfalls that threaten users because of possible usage of digital footprints could not be dangerous in the context of professional ethics (p.77)”. Digital foot prints are dangerous for a number of reasons. Those foot prints track your every move. For example, say you wanted to look up something about making a rollercoaster. IT Specialists can track everything that you looked up. In some aspects people have nothing to hide, but it’s also scary to think that someone can trace your every move from the internet. Also, according to Demers, J.A, & Sullivan, A.L. (2016) “Although technology can provide numerous advantages in the workplace, it also introduces several challenges, including increased vulnerability of private information (p.518)”. Everyone’s information is being displayed on the internet. People can search their name and their address, and their maiden name and pictures come up. To some people, they don’t care but to others it’s very discomforting to know that anyone can get your information. Someone could get your information and pretend to be you which would open up another bad situation. Demers, J.A, & Sullivan, A.L. (2016) states, “Through various social media platforms, a plethora of personal information is disseminated in the form of text, photos, and video. Although users can apply privacy settings, any electronic data stored on the web may potentially be accessible to others (p.522)”. This was a big eye opener for me, that even though there are privacy settings people might be able to access my page. Why does this happen? How can we feel safe if we aren’t really safe at all? It’s unethical to pretend to be someone else and it’s also unethical to use someone’s digital foot prints against them. The next topic I want to address is intellectual property. What exactly is intellectual property? According to WIPO, “Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions; literary and artistic works; and symbols, names and images used in commerce(p.1)”. Intellectual property is divided into two parts; copyright and industrial property. People can benefit from intellectual property. WIPO states, “The multibillion dollar film, recording, publishing and software industries – which bring pleasure to millions of people worldwide – would not exist without copyright protection (p.4)”. Having intellectual property allows people to enjoy movies because they can’t be copyrighted. Additionally, WIPO states, “ Without the rewards provided by the patent system, researchers and inventors would have little incentive to continue producing better and more efficient products for consumers(p.4)”. The reason why we have intellectual property is to provide people with a patent so someone can’t steal their idea. Once they come up with this patent, they can make money off it and improve the kinks of the design and product. Furthermore, WIPO states, “Consumers would have no means to confidently buy products or services without reliable, international trademark protection and enforcement mechanisms to discourage counterfeiting and piracy(p.4)”. Without intellectual property people would not have a reliable international trademark protection. This would make it extremely difficult to enforce and discourage counterfeiting. Also, this would lead to massive piracy across the nation. So it’s good that we have these laws that protect us with patents, trademarks, and copyrights. As an educator, it’s unethical to steal someone’s work. It’s also unethical for a student to steal someone’s work. Intellectual property allows people to use something that isn’t theirs and gives the person or company the credit they are due. According to Harris, A. L., Lang, M., Yates, D., & Kruck, S. E. (2011), “A decade and a half later, we have now reached a stage where the Internet pervades the everyday lives of citizens, reaching into homes where children play on games consoles, and interact with social media sites, into the workplace where our email and Web browsing activities are being logged and mined, into public services where citizens’ private information is recorded within government and healthcare systems, and into the street where our consumer behavior and physical movements can be tracked by stealth. There are very few places the Internet does not pervade today(p.184)”. This is disheartening but it’s also the reality of the internet. People use the internet for just about anything. Insuring that students use intellectual properties correctly will teach the students the necessary guidelines when using someone’s work. Additionally, according to Harris, A. L., Lang, M., Yates, D., & Kruck, S. E. (2011), “The illegal copying and distribution of software, music, video and other forms of digital media is a major issue, particularly amongst students of the “Millennial Generation,” some of whom might never have acquired digital media through legitimate means(p.186)”. For students in this generation they think it is okay to download music without having to pay for it. An artist spent countless hours making the music, in return students should not copyright the music or trademark the music because that is unethical. Students don’t seem to understand that they are downloading someone else’s work. As an educator it is our job to educate the Millennials and teach them that even though it is music, it’s not theirs so they have to take the right methods to listen to music. This is a huge party of intellectual property. Furthermore, Harris, A. L., Lang, M., Yates, D., & Kruck, S. E. (2011) states, “Ethics and social responsibility are not new phenomena, but recent developments in IT exponentially advance their effects. For example, one could reasonably argue that individual privacy has never been more threatened. Likewise, the risk of manipulation of information, particularly of vulnerable populations, places serious obligations and responsibilities upon data controllers(p.187)”. It is our job as educators to teach students about the necessary ethics in the cyber world. By showing the students what is ethical and unethical, it will hopefully sink in that some of the careless things they might do on the internet aren’t as ethical as they thought. Finally, I am going to talk about phishing. Do students know what a phishing scheme is? Let’s first define phishing. According to Microsoft, “Phishing (pronounced "fishing") is a type of online identity theft. It uses email and fraudulent websites that are designed to steal your personal data or information such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information. Con artists might send millions of fraudulent email messages with links to fraudulent websites that appear to come from websites you trust, like your bank or credit card company, and request that you provide personal information. Criminals can use this information for many different types of fraud, such as to steal money from your account, to open new accounts in your name, or to obtain official documents using your identity.” Educators need to teach students about phishing and how dangerous it could be for them. Phishing is completely unethical and it’s very sad that millions of people get scammed every day. According to Arachchilage, N. G., Love, S., & Beznosov, K. (2016),“The game was designed and developed as an educational tool to teach computer users how to thwart phishing attacks. The study results showed a significant improvement of participants' phishing avoidance behavior and suggested that participants' threat perception, safeguard effectiveness, self-efficacy, perceived severity and perceived susceptibility elements positively impact threat avoidance behavior, whereas safeguard cost had a negative impact on it(p.186)”. Using the mobile game prototype will hopefully promote less phishing schemes and scams. There are many way to determine if a website is a phishing scam. According to Arachchilage, N. G., Love, S., & Beznosov, K. (2016),“ Possible phishing attacks can be identified in several ways, such as by carefully looking at the website address, so called Universal Resource Locator (URL), signs (i.e., VeriSign, https, Extended Validation (EV) certificates), content and jargon of the web page, the lock icon(s) on the browser chrome, the context of the email message and the general warning messages displayed on the website(p.187)”. Teachers can teach students the appropriate way to search for something on the internet. They can go over the key elements that make the website secure. One of those key elements to look for is a lock icon when purchasing something on the internet. Also, teachers can show students how to search for something using the web. Additionally, Arachchilage, N. G., Love, S., & Beznosov, K. (2016) state, “Website addresses that have numbers in the front are generally scams” or “a company name followed by a hyphen in a URL is generally a scam(p.188)”. Teaching the students the ins and outs of the internet is extremely beneficial. Furthermore, according to Arachchilage, N. G., Love, S., & Beznosov, K. (2016), “All participants were convinced that the mobile game is somewhat effective in enhancing their avoidance behavior through motivation to protect themselves from phishing threats. Their common argument was that books, papers, articles and lecture notes are boring. Those materials cannot provide fun with immediate feedback, whereas this type of mobile game based education can actually provide both. This would have motivated them to play the game to learn about phishing threats(p.193)”. Students want to learn through tangible things, such as playing a game. If you can motivate the student to learn about a certain subject it will keep their interest and then they will want to learn more. The phishing game would be beneficial for students to play so that they can recognize a phishing threat. By educating our youth, we are giving them guidelines to be successful adults. In conclusion, cyber ethics is an immense deal and it’s not something to take lightly. There are many different types of ethics but I only named a few. The few that I named seem the most important to me. Teaching our students about cyber bullying, digital foot prints, intellectual property, and phishing schemes will hopefully make the students more aware of what is really on the Internet. The Internet can be a scary place to some, but with the appropriate lessons and knowledge students and teacher will be able to feel more at ease.'' __NEWSECTIONLINK__